Joker's Wild Half Marathon

Well, back from the Joker's Wild Half Marathon that was ran at the Creve Coeur Lake about 3 miles from my house, hard to pass up. SOMEBODY PLEASE SHOOT ME IF I DO NOT PASS THIS UP NEXT YEAR!!! Heh, a July half marathon in St Louis is NOT a good idea (: With the rest I got in this week, I was actually feeling pretty good, and for the first half (the course was done as a double loop) I was cruising along, right about 1:03 for the first 6.5 miles (a 9:50 pace or so). But then the second loop, I started slowing down. From about mile 9 to mile 12.6 we were on the Page Extension spur that goes out and hooks up to the Katy Trail, and there's not a tree in sight along that, and so the sun was just beating down. I have my garmin set up so that it beeps if my heart rate hits 181, and it kept going off, so every time it did, I would walk a bit. So the last 4 miles I had quite a bit of walking. Unofficial time posted at the race was 2:15:00.1 ... bah (: Splits from my garmin were 10:10, 9:06, 9:19, 9:34, 9:47, 9:56, 10:16, 10:21, 10:42, 10:27, 10:51, 11:20, 11:23 and 1:35 for the last .17 miles (9:20 pace, I tried to finish strong). I actually felt like I could run more the last few miles than I did, but my heart rate was just a wee bit too high. Avg Heart Rate for the race was 172. Overall I'm happy with my time even though I didn't better my Hospital Hill time, if it had been overcast or about 10 degrees cooler, I think I could have kept up my earlier pace. Done running until after Ragbrai, legs will be happy about that.